Canadian Anti-Piracy Company Uses Photos without Permission

Canadian Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement, or Canipre for short, is a Canada-based anti-piracy company that partners with film studios and record companies to hunt down people suspected of stealing content. That's perfectly fine, don't make that face. However right now the company looks like an organization full of hypocrites.

Vice Canada reported that the intellectual rights advocates stole photos. Three photographers discovered that their images were displayed on Canipre's site without permission. The photographers were, Steve Houk, Sascha Pohflepp and Brian Moore. the last two had their images licensed CC, meaning Canipre only had to give them credits to not get into hot water, but they totally didn't. Fail.

The company was fast to respond when Steve Houk reached out to them through email to have his picture taken down. The company's managing director Berry Logan apologized and explained that the image was obtained through a third party web developer who licensed the photo via an image bank. Houk said he didn't license his photo to anyone, explaining that the company basically paid another entity to steal for them.

The company said it would contact the web provider and tell Houk the name of said provider to find out more about the stolen image. Since then, all images in question have been taken down but the name of the provider has not been disclosed. Canipre's reputation took a hit.